2009.09.24 13:00 - Environmental effects

The Guardian for this meeting was Storm Nordwind. The comments are by Storm Nordwind.

All was quiet for nearly half and hour. Then doug, Eliza and Yakuzza arrived.

doug Sosa: just arrived home after three hour drive. .
Storm Nordwind: Oh really?
doug Sosa: gave a speech at stanford this morning.
Storm Nordwind: How did it go?
doug Sosa: well, i was nervous. Invita
doug Sosa: machine jsut booting up still slow :)
doug Sosa: invitation to film the talk. it was on the draft of my book
Storm Nordwind: And was it filmed?
doug Sosa: no, it will be, in mod october.
doug Sosa: new audience.
Storm Nordwind: What size audience?
doug Sosa: about sixty i think, like this morning.
Storm Nordwind: And what are their qualifications and interests?
doug Sosa: hm, well its about the reponse to the economic, ecological and political crisis.
doug Sosa: so their qual is interest, as is mine.
Storm Nordwind: Hi Eliza!
doug Sosa: :)
Eliza Madrigal: Hi Storm, Hi Doug :)
Storm Nordwind: You see these as a single interlinked crisis, by the sound of things, is that right?
doug Sosa: yes, indeed. doesn't mean i'm right.
doug Sosa: well, they conveege, not cause each other.
Storm Nordwind: Do they have a common cause?
doug Sosa: yes, over industrialization and over commodification. . but i'd want to be more precise if i wan't just getting
doug Sosa: my mind off the long drive.
Storm Nordwind whispers to Eliza: doug is telling us about the draft of his book and the speech he just gave at Standford
Eliza Madrigal: Ah, nice, thanks :)
doug Sosa: The inerest in climate change and ecological concnerns are inceasing very rapidly. All the courses that touch
doug Sosa: on these are double enrollment from last year.
Storm Nordwind: Is there a deeper cause though? What gives rise to a trend of over industrialization and over commodification?
doug Sosa: the issue can be put thus: the science is good, but the politics terrible. What to do?
--BELL--
doug Sosa: well, human success is one, western civ is another.
Storm Nordwind: Haven't politics always been terrible, in any age? :) Science is just an enabling tool to be used by politics, no?
Storm Nordwind: Hello Yak!
Yakuzza Lethecus: hey everyone
Eliza Madrigal: It makes sense that enrollment in those courses is high. I'm sure students see this as the progressive direction to be in
Eliza Madrigal: Hi Yakuzza :)
doug Sosa: too extreme.
Storm Nordwind: I agree Eliza
doug Sosa: no "just". but rather, yes and..
doug Sosa: hi ya :)
Storm Nordwind: It sounds to me, doug (though I may be generalizing wildly), that you are trying to find a solution for the human condition and its selfishness! :)
Eliza Madrigal: :)
doug Sosa: no, climate change is a specific issue, not one rooted in human nautre. It may be we can't do anuything. we grow as a species spontaneously, slowing down and taking a husbandry approach to ourselves is a long shot, but worth trying.
Eliza Madrigal: There can be a feeling also, re climate change in particular, that although there are band-aids, there is so far nothing 'major'... meaning often solutions cause problems, so there is a long delay to put money into initiatives that come up
Eliza Madrigal: My son today, 10yo, asked me "What if rockets were causing global warming?" "We want to know stuff but..."
doug Sosa: I think it is not money. we can't industrialize the solutions to climate chane without continuing to empower the bansk, etc. We need something quite diffeent.
Eliza Madrigal listens
doug Sosa: tell him that if we compare the number of rockets with the numbr of planes...
Eliza Madrigal: yes...that is along the lines the discussion did go in, in fact. hah
doug Sosa: it probably is not the rockets themselves. but perhps the overall initiative they come from.
Eliza Madrigal: I still felt his question was larger than the one he asked
Eliza Madrigal: it was more the feeling of it
doug Sosa: of which horses to trains to panes to rockets are a kind of evolutionary line.
Storm Nordwind: Give people a means of transport that gives personal freedom and convenience, and they will undoubtedly want to use it.
doug Sosa: "give"?
Storm Nordwind: Most people do not invent means of transport. They buy into what's available.
Eliza Madrigal nods
doug Sosa: One of the things about second life is the cheap tranportation without the need for vehicles. No cars in these parts!
Eliza Madrigal: :) Yes, teleporting might help
Storm Nordwind: And yet it is badly contributing towards climate change!
doug Sosa: second life? the servers? the by products of the computers?
Storm Nordwind: And the laptops and the networks etc
doug Sosa: Paul and I would love to see actual numbers.
Storm Nordwind: They are extant, but don't ask me for where!
Yakuzza Lethecus: i already had the infrastructure before second life
doug Sosa: A grain of sugar can keep a fly flying for half an hour ( i am told).
Yakuzza Lethecus: to the costs are not only funded to SL :)
doug Sosa: how many joules to keep a person in second life for an hour?
doug Sosa: Including yes the manuracturing real costs of the computer, the waste products..
Storm Nordwind: And the fact that I'm force-cooling my graphics card with a fan... :)
doug Sosa: shame!
doug Sosa: :)
Yakuzza Lethecus: we could all use text based second life :)
Yakuzza Lethecus: i tried that onces but it was really hard :)
Yakuzza Lethecus: textSL
doug Sosa: ugh.
Eliza Madrigal: Hm, yes that was a real blindspot fr me.... because I've kind of envisioned that moving all malls onto second life type environments would be a real step up
doug Sosa: the human brain runs on 7 watts. the most effecint computer on about 25?
doug Sosa: Eliza, it might. that's why we need good comparative numbers.
--BELL--
Yakuzza Lethecus: hmm, it really depends on what kind of computer you are talking about, there are processors that need even less like the atom but the infrastructure of those is often an issue
Yakuzza Lethecus: it´s even possible to join second life via cell phone, i did that with my ipod touch :P
Yakuzza Lethecus: i think often about the issue that i can´t turn off for example my graphics card, such a thing consumes 50w idle and up to over 100w when it´s working(in my system) but i pretty much never turn the system off
Eliza Madrigal: It might still be the 'fastest' way though... tech does move quickly compared to other initiatives, as far as getting 'smaller'? so might waste less and less?
Storm Nordwind: One of things that I'm amazed about, coming to the US, is the amount of junk mail that proliferates. Consider the cost of all this, is dollars to the sender, in manufacture to the environment, in transport to the environment too. I'd certainly like less of that!
Eliza Madrigal: It isn't like that in England, Storm?
Storm Nordwind: No
doug Sosa: the atom draws 4-12 watts.
Eliza Madrigal: I thought it was a worldwide epidemic....ugh
Storm Nordwind: It's tenfold here, compared to the UK
Storm Nordwind: Or seems to be
Eliza Madrigal: that, and the packaging of food are the things I notice most
Eliza Madrigal: as far as sheer wastefulness
Storm Nordwind: And let's get rid of all TVs too. ;) (I got rid of mine 13 years ago!)
doug Sosa: i've never had one!
Eliza Madrigal looks away and whistles having turned the tv back on a few months ago....hehe
doug Sosa: eliza, what was the draw?
Storm Nordwind: There's a TV in the condo... but we only ever use it for the security camera when we're expecting someone.
Eliza Madrigal: The kids love animal shows, and I like watching Charlie Rose and Book TV ...
Eliza Madrigal: It is rarely on, and I know we can get most of these things online...
Yakuzza Lethecus: Book TV ?
Eliza Madrigal: but there is a difference to the eyes
Eliza Madrigal: yes, Cspan 2 has author interviews all weekend
Eliza Madrigal: sometimes they are really interesting
Storm Nordwind does not know what Charlie Rose is either, nor why he arose in the first place :)
Eliza Madrigal: hehe
doug Sosa: nor i.
Eliza Madrigal: It goes in waves for our family... but I don't agree that all tv is bad...just 99%
Storm Nordwind: I understand the proportions! It's the time that's a big problem. Sifting for the 1%, I could more usefully spend that time elsewhere.
Eliza Madrigal: Being on separate computers is sometimes worse... also with tivo one can choose what they want... record films and watch together, etc
Storm Nordwind reminds those who want to go to Stim's Ways of Knowking workshop, that the time is very near!
Eliza Madrigal: and again, times and seasons. We went for years without tv
Eliza Madrigal: Ah, thanks Storm :))
doug Sosa: We each need to find our way through this. Children make it more difficult.
doug Sosa: bless em.
Eliza Madrigal: :)
Eliza Madrigal: Thanks for an interesting talk guys! Bye for now
Storm Nordwind: Bye for now!
Yakuzza Lethecus: good day doug/stomr
doug Sosa: yes, i need a nap :)
doug Sosa: bye.
doug Sosa: storm how do i best request kira dome for monday 9 am pacfic?
Storm Nordwind: Just send me an email, with all the info I asked for before - you know, group, numbers, times, regularity etc - and I can do something about it
doug Sosa: thanks. Will do.
--BELL--
Storm Nordwind: We have not yet set up the system fully but perhaps having a real example will galvenise us!
doug Sosa: great. ok, bye.
Storm Nordwind waves